Written in the Stars(35)
Elle’s feet moved disconnected from her brain. Before she knew it, she had rounded the table and was throwing her arms around Darcy’s neck, wrapping her up in an eager hug that pressed their bodies together.
Darcy tensed in Elle’s arms, body rigid as a board. Elle held her breath and was primed to let go, when Darcy finally returned Elle’s embrace. For all that her wit was cutting, her tongue barbed, and her jaw a pretty knife’s-edge cliff, hugging Darcy was anything but sharp. From the lavender-scented silk of her hair against Elle’s cheek to the swell of her breasts pressed against Elle, Darcy’s hug was all softness and the last thing Elle wanted was to let go.
Houston, she had a problem.
Chapter Eight
Don’t think about it became Darcy’s mantra as she followed her brother out of the pub and onto the sidewalk, Elle floating along at her side. Every other step, Elle would sway into Darcy, arms bumping, the backs of their hands, their fingers, brushing.
Don’t think about it.
It could’ve gone worse, this double date. Sure, Elle had delighted in watching Darcy squirm with each pet name uttered, but there’d been no giant blowup. No fights or spilled wine or ruined silk dresses or sudden disappearances that made Darcy’s chest ache. They’d managed to set aside their differences, their distinctly different ways of looking at the world, in order to come together and solve the puzzle, winning the escape room. Brendon was right. Teamwork really had made the dream work even if she had, at first, been reluctant to trust something as imprecise as Elle’s gut.
They’d escaped the room, won trivia, and as far as Darcy could tell, Brendon was none the wiser that this thing with Elle was all an act. All in all, the night had been a success.
Save for the part where Elle’s bright, twinkling laughter made Darcy dizzy. Or how the look of unadulterated joy on Elle’s face when those balloons and that annoying confetti had rained down on them made Darcy feel like someone had punched her in the gut, then chopped her off at the knees.
But she wasn’t thinking about that. No. She wasn’t going to think about how smooth Elle’s skin, her thigh, had felt beneath that table, how she’d wanted to stay hidden by the tablecloth. She wasn’t going to think about how Elle’s breath had tickled her neck during that hug or how Elle’s lip had brushed her jaw as she lowered back down from where she’d risen up on her tippy-toes and flung her arms around Darcy’s neck.
No, Darcy wasn’t going to give oxygen to that . . . that spark. If she breathed life into it, it would grow and that—
Darcy curled her toes inside her boots, nails biting into the palms of her hands. She definitely wasn’t going to think about what might transpire if she let that happen because it was pointless. Elle was technicolor chaos and the feelings she inspired in Darcy were a hazard straight out of Pandora’s box. Treacherous and confusing and better kept under lock and key. Darcy didn’t need disorder in her life.
Elle stopped walking and jerked her chin to the right. “Hey, so, I’m this way.”
She opened her mouth to say good night, when Brendon frowned and shook his head. “Where’s your place?”
Elle shoved her hands in the pockets of her crazy dress, the navy color complementing her skin—the rest of her, too—perfectly. She practically glowed. “It’s just up Second to Union till it turns to Pike and then up to Belmont.” A breeze blew past, ruffling Elle’s bangs and making her shiver. “Not far.”
Darcy hadn’t lived in the city for long, but she knew it was a trek to Capitol Hill, over a mile. It was after eleven, dark, and the temperatures were dropping, not quite below freezing but enough to make her breath fog. Elle wasn’t even wearing a jacket. Walking—and by herself no less—wasn’t smart.
“We’ll split an Uber,” she suggested, thankful when Brendon nodded.
Elle didn’t look sold. “Isn’t that out of the way? You’re in Queen Anne and Brendon’s over on the Eastside so—”
“I drove.” Brendon tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I left my car in Darcy’s parking garage and took advantage of the guest space. Free parking.”
Elle appeared a bit more convinced, the frown between her brows softening. “Okay. Thanks.”
Within five minutes, their Uber arrived, a blue Prius with a back seat nowhere near big enough for the three of them, so Brendon called shotgun, as if they’d have chosen any other configuration.
Wrinkling her nose at the smell of old takeout and musty gym clothes, Darcy slipped inside the back seat, shuffling over to make room. Elle sat, hands tucking around the back of her skirt as she swung her legs inside the vehicle, those strange, sparkling combat boots catching the streetlight and turning the black patent leather into an oil slick against Elle’s pale skin. Skin bare all the way to where the hem of Elle’s dress brushed against her thighs.
Don’t think about it.
Face prickling with heat, Darcy tore her eyes away and stared resolutely out the window. The lights from bars and late-night eateries blurred past, stoplights reflecting off puddles on the ground and turning the city into a neon nightscape, still nowhere near as colorful as the girl sitting beside her.
Techno-pop blasted through the speakers and beneath her, the electric engine purred, the combined beat rumbling through her body and sinking into her bones, making her aware of her heartbeat. It was beating too fast, faster even when the driver made a right at the light and the tire rolled over the curb, jostling them until Darcy, once again, nearly had a lapful of Elle.